“Armed ISIS cells targeted the al-Sabha police station in eastern Deir ez-Zor with a hand grenade, then opened fire on the first protection point as they fled. Our forces returned fire, and no casualties were reported among our members,” the Kurdish-led internal security forces (Asayish) said in a statement.
Another ISIS attack targeted a patrol en route from the town of Busayrah to support the first convoy, which again resulted in no casualties.
The attack is the latest in an escalation of ISIS attacks in the area, particularly targeting Kurdish-led forces and civilians, with the militants seeking to exploit a security vacuum sparked by increased instability following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
ISIS and its so-called “caliphate” was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019, two years after its defeat in Iraq, but the group has recently sought to regain ground, especially after the fall of the Assad regime.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the United States, is the de facto army of northeast Syria (Rojava), and has fought to prevent the militants from reestablishing a foothold in the shifting security landscape.
In late May, three Asayish members were killed when an ISIS landmine struck their patrol vehicle on the Raqqa-Hasaka road, days after an operation by the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in Busayrah led to the arrest of ten ISIS members.
